I Feel Like the Gecko!

There is a new Geico commercial, where they try to put the Gecko in a suit to help rack up sales. And when the little suit comes out for him to admire, he looks at it with awkwardness, disgust, and confusion. At the end of the commercial you can tell what the gecko is thinking "I just want to save people money on car insurance, why does it matter what I wear?"

That's how I feel.

At some point, you become defined in who you are. You know your passions, your purpose, your drive. You have surrounded yourself with people who love you, and support you. Many are down the same different drum road you are. You feel confident that because you are different, the world is going to be a different and much better place.

Then right as you least expect it, during an evening with friends, planning your wedding, or just having an average day at work; the world demands you to play by their rules. They may suggest things to be more interested in, different things to wear, different things to fight for, different people to associate with. Where before you know it, you are nothing but a shell of your formal self.

As usual, you give a little. "No, sure I can do that. I like 4 inch heals! They are so comfortable on my feet!" "Wicker?! Yeah Wicker could be stylish!"

Then one morning you will find yourself in a situation, and no longer recognize yourself. "When did I start wearing crocks?" "Wait, I used to look like these cool hipster, indie kids....What happened?" And before you know it you feel disappointed that you broke the one promise you had made to yourself so long ago. To just be you...

Then the world well ask you to change something that is so outrageous, so against everything you stand for, you will put your foot down.

This happened to me this week. Both things actually. I went to an environment that used to be a culture I was engulfed in. And since the Adult world has pulled me so far away, I panicked. Still not sure exactly why. Is it because I realized just how much I have changed since college, probably.

Yet at the same time, the world came knocking on my idealistic door demanding something else to be different; and for the first time I said no. I said no and I made no apologies for my actions or for the way I do things. I nor my actions will be like everyone else. That is how I will change the world.

Now I am just finding a way to be in the middle. I understand that to change the system and to fully complete my goals I have to work within the system, but that does not mean I have to lose my sense of self or the ideologies that I started out with. There can be both. There needs to be both.

That is also another goal that I am hoping to accomplish. How can I combine my old awesome self and my new boring professional self, to be the person that I ultimately want to be? I want to be able to say that I also have this accomplished at the end of the year, and frankly I think that I have a lot of awesome things to help me get there.